The Methodist Church Property Case (Classic Reprint)
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| Hersteller: | Forgotten Books (Bascom, Henry B.) |
| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
Produktbeschreibung
Excerpt from The Methodist Church Property Case They were sold among the denomination; and out of the profits a small capital was gradually formed, which was employed in publishing books. This came to be a matter of some magnitude; and in the year 1836 it had been removed to this city, and become an extensive establishment. It had undergone considerable vicissitudes; but at that period it was emerging from its difficulties, and becoming a great establishment. It was then destroyed by fire. It was afterward reinvigorated, as everything in this city seems to have been by the fires of that period; and from that time to the present it has gone on with great prosperity, so that it has accumulated a capital of about $750, 000. The manner in which these books were circulated will perhaps be worthy of your Honours´ attention in the history and consideration of this case. It was early provided that the preachers should see that their congregations were supplied with books. They took the books from the publishing establishment, and sold them: and in that way there was in fact a real, substantial, and beneficial monopoly in the furnishing of religious books, and all the preachers were agents in carrying it out. They ere very faithful men - stimulated, not by the love of gain, but by the higher purpose of religious devotion. Of course, a fund thus constructed could not but become very considerable. Your Honours will have your attention called to the fact that it was really the result of the devotion and sen-ices of the preachers. It was not, like many charitable funds, a fund growing out of donations of wealthy men; but it was, in its main features, the earnings of this system. Its profits, after providing capital enough to carry on its business successfully, were devoted at an early period to one single purpose in two or three branches: - That purpose was, the making up of the deficiencies in the salaries of travelling preachers, and providing for the supernumerary, superannuated preachers, the wives and children of preachers, and the widows and orphans of deceased preachers. The number of these appear regularly on the Minutes of the General Conference of this society. That, therefore, was the destination of the profits of this fund; for it was no object to accumulate capital for the mere purposes of accumulation. It is now necessary that I should introduce another subject - the conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church - because they become very important, vitally important, to be understood in this controversy. The concerns of the Methodist Church are managed by what are called Annual and General Conferences. At the introduction of Methodism into this country, its preachers were not very numerous. Although the extent of country was great, there were in all but seven annual conferences. I ought, perhaps, to explain what the annual conferences are. Originally all the preachers of this denomination met every year, and disposed of that which was general in their concerns. The conferences consisted of travelling preachers, who served particular districts of country, somewhat analogous to the division of districts in our judicial system. Originally the whole of Methodism in the United States was but one conference, and consisted of but a small number of preachers. In 1784 that was the case. But it very soon became necessary to divide this conference. It was divided; but, although a division, in fact it was a multiplication also. At first the annual conference was in fact the General Conference of the Methodist Church; then the earliest formed from this were the Philadelphia and New-York Conferences. As the territory increased, these annual conferences were divided, and formed new bodies; until in 1844, which is the period at which we shall arrive, there were something like thirty-two or thirty-three annual conferences.
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